"Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops, like bishops, and your religious act like religious." - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, 1972

Thursday, August 10, 2017

CHILDISH PARROTING

Posted by Tim

In the wake of SNAP's going into convulsions after a little criticism of their motives, I was reminded of something I had written in May of 2010 after Joelle Casteix' first intrusion into Guam. It is amazingly relevant 7 years later. I'll copy it here:

Joelle Casteix (SNAP) and I have a few things in common. 1. We're both from Southern California. 2. We both attended Catholic schools. 3. The high school we attended were in the same athletic league (I attended Bishop Amat in La Puente, and she attended Mater Dei in Santa Ana). 3. Both of us experienced "abuse" in a Catholic setting in our teens. 4. Both of us developed a passion to do something about what we believed to be wrongs in the Church.

But there are differences too. 1. Ms. Casteix stayed with her abuser and carried on a two year sexual relationship with him eventually conceiving a child, contracting a venereal disease, and having an abortion, whereas, I ran. 2. Ms. Casteix left the Church. I didn't. 3. Ms. Casteix makes a living out of "cleaning up the Church". I don't. 4. Ms. Casteix is not concerned with the whole story about the scandal, I am. (We'll get to that.)

I did not intend to bring up Ms. Casteix personally or her motives. But her call to K57 in the wake of the news about the laicization of Ray Cepeda, in which she took credit for forcing the Archdiocese to make the announcement, changed my mind. In short, what we have here is a total stranger showing up on our island, threatening the Catholic Church and its leadership, making claims, accusations, and scandalous inferences without substantiation nor the transparency that she claims to demand from the Church.

In yesterday's PDN, Cal Thomas had a column about a citizen watchdog organization called Citizens Against Government Waste. What if one of their members suddenly showed up on Guam accusing the Governor and his administration of abusing the public trust, of hiding defrauders by just moving them around to different departments, of withholding information about known cases of waste and fiscal abuse?

While such news would not necessarily be anything new, I would like to think that a responsible Media would like to know something about about the accuser's credentials, background, motives, and if and how he will benefit from his attack on our government. However, in the case of Ms. Casteix, we get none of that. The almost slavish attention paid Casteix by a dutiful Media is more than just irresponsible reporting.

Would you all be running up to this man (from Citizens Against Government Waste) with your microphones and breathlessly jotting down his every word without some question of his credentials. Yet, this is exactly the way most of the Media here treats Ms. Casteix. Nobody has thought to question her credentials, investigate her background, inquire about her motives. No, what we get is slavish reporting and an almost childish parroting.

*****

I also came across this, written about the same time. The full article had to do with her collaboration with a certain senator, but we'll leave him out (portions redacted) for now as he is no longer the issue.

Senator X seems to be emboldened by the visit of Joelle Casteix who represents SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Pardon us for thinking this, but the vision of a white woman from the mainland descending upon Guam aboard a great silver eagle to embolden grown male pacific islanders to speak up in self-defense just smacks of imperial colonialism to a monstrous and laughable degree.

A March 18, K57 news story stated that Ms. Casteix "began doing work for Guam's sex abuse victims when numerous men from Guam reached out for her asking for help." The visual would be funny if it wasn't so pitiable: visions of brave men from Guam secretly "begging for help" from an American white woman. Men, especially Chamorro men, should be rightfully insulted. Once again, we must endure the great "white savior" coming to the rescue of the "poor little brown man". Embarrassing.
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It seems that SNAP and Senator X are working hand in hand to discredit the Catholic Church in any way they can. In a recent letter to the Guam Legislature, Ms. Casteix claims to be an advocate for all victims of child sexual abuse...not just those abused by priests, but unless you were abused by a priest, don't bother going to talk to her. She only wants to go after priests.

However, inconsistencies are what Ms. Casteix is all about. The KUAM news story states that Ms. Casteix "received phone calls from TWO individuals who said they were victims of sexual abuse". In her letter to the Guam Legislature she states that she received THREE phone calls from Guam from men "begging for help".The K57 story says she received calls from "NUMEROUS men."

Also in the K57 news story, Casteix claims to be a "a survivor of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church". "Catholic Church" is intended to mean "priests", given the organization she represents and her objective on Guam.

Hodgman may have been a choir teacher but he wasn't a priest. And though he was a teacher in a Catholic school, to claim "sexual abuse in the Catholic Church" in this case would be equivalent to a local public school student in a similar situation claiming "sexual abuse by the Government of Guam". The allegation "horribly sexually molested" carries an inference that her "abuser" may have been elderly or middle age. He wasn't. He was 26 and in Casteix' own words "young and cool".

While we won't question Ms. Casteix' story, we certainly can question both her motives and her credibility. We are curious as to what getting pregnant as a 17 year old by a 26 year old male who she considered to be "young and cool", and with whom she had a two year sexual relationship, has to do with her crusade against the Catholic Church.